One of the main reasons I stayed last night was Tank barking. Daytime is much better; people are gone for testing, eating, and not even checked in. Nighttime will make sleeping people mad! I decided when I woke up that I was going to see Amanda no matter how Tank acted. I planned to get the Ring camera from Target and grab Birthday breakfast. I love breakfast; it’s my favorite meal. I found a place with raving reviews on their biscuits and was ready! But at 3 am, while still awake, I suddenly remembered that the camera wouldn’t work with the browser login wifi. Amazon same-day delivery to the rescue for a travel router to fix that problem. I was still worried about whether Tank would bark or not, and if he did, would someone rat him out? So, I didn’t go out to pick anything up. I didn’t think that through, and sadly, I didn’t get my breakfast. He was so anxious last night. I’m a veteran at dropping mom off at the hospital with a packed bag; this was his first rodeo!
Last night, Amanda said well, we’ll need to be looking at Boxer rescue pages! She’s right. We’d already talked about getting another. We don’t want a puppy but a mature dog. Tank was a year or so old when we got him from a rescue. I was semi-housed and melded well with Zoey. Being dropped off in the rescue lady’s yard gave him some separation anxiety. He would mess on the floor if we were out of site for more than five minutes. He loved his crate and found security in it, so he stayed in it while we were gone for a year or two before he was comfortable roaming the house. Boxers have the longest puppy stage of all dogs, too, so maniacs for years before they’re old souls!
We went out for a morning potty run. I had to keep telling him we weren’t like the homeless, so he couldn’t just pee on the side of the building; we’d need to wait for grass! We took a walk in the wet grass, no rain at least. Tank wasn’t too happy about the few inches of water in a low spot on the sidewalk we walked through, though! He remembers his command to cross the street fast, not sniffing or lallygagging around, “Cross.” He’d held his dinner, and I knew he needed to go. He did and had a good poop and a good bit of it, too. I was intimately familiar with it since I had a warm bag full in my hand for a block before I reached a trash can!
This morning, I got a text from someone from church about how they care for their dog when they are traveling. He’d gotten word of the Tank saga. My first thought was someone had started the prayer warriors up. I wasn’t wrong; someone else, in a happy birthday text, said people were praying for Tank. They weren’t the only ones praying; I was worried about things. That’s the kind of church we have, the kind that prays for my dog. If you are out there all alone in your faith, go find a church; there are good ones everywhere. I’m the first to say the church is messed up and gets things wrong. People aren’t perfect and mess up all the time. Imperfect people are church leaders and members both, so don’t expect perfection from the church or the people in it; just let some imperfect people love on you. When you find a faith family, as we have you, they aren’t church family they are just family.
Once Tank was fast asleep, it was my chance to leave. I didn’t say a word when I left him. He woke when I got up but didn’t get down off the bed. He did give me a go-to-hell look as I walked out of the door! I heard him at the door as I walked down the hall. He only whined a little. I didn’t hear a bark; either way, I wasn’t going back.
I only texted Amanda this morning, not to upset Tank like last night. I let her text me first so I wouldn’t wake her up. By the time the “Are y’all up” text got to me, I was about to leave. I assumed she was on the floor; nope, she was still in the ER waiting to go up. I needed to grab my small backpack out of the Yukon to put my MacBook in to carry it back and forth. Before I went over to see Amanda. I ordered our morning coffee with a Bday StarBs gift card. When I walked in, the guy recognized me and said yours is ready to go, Barkley. Handing it directly to me, not even staring it down, was perfect timing! The recognization garnered him a tip, too!
So, this hospital has a dog policy. I’ve looked at the app and their website. There used to be a dog rate per day and a nonrefundable deposit. Now it doesn’t show annoying, just the number or dog weight limit, 75 pounds; I tell Tank to suck it in every time we walk in! There is nothing about the fees anymore, even on the check-in in the app, nothing. So, we may be skating the system if there is still a fee. So, if anyone from the Westin is reading this, let’s keep this between us. Either way, it’s not hard to tell which room has the dog in it with the “don’t let the dog out” door hanger!
I found a new way around the hospital and to the ER. To get there from the first floor, you must take the parking garage sky bridge elevator and then down. This puts you outside in the ER bay, and then you walk in. Today, I waltzed right in from the basement. It did not take long to see that Amanda was restless from being in the ER so long. I don’t know why she refuses to get comfortable in the ER. She’s just hard-headed and stays dressed!
She was ready for lunch early for us and promptly at noon was hinting about it. When I left, the ER was full of sick people. I just held my breath, walking through! I still don’t understand why they send an immunocompromised patient to the ER! I grabbed my mobile order with no help from the staff; all name labels were facing the kitchen, not the customers grabbing them. I looked through them and didn’t find mine. Then, a nurse walked up, looking for hers, and said, “No labels?” I mentioned they were facing the wrong direction and asked her name. I said well, I saw yours mentioning I should have turned them around. She said, let’s do good as we started turning them all around!
Amanda will be mortified by the title of this post and all the poo talk, but she won’t be surprised. She said I talk about poo too much. I think we should break the stigma around it; I mean, come on, we all do it! And Tank was all anxious because he hadn’t had a good one. I’m sure it was a stress reliever for him this morning, too! I’m pretty sure I could turn this into a sermon with great illustration and comic relief. The moral of this story is to go have yourself a good poop and pray; God doesn’t even care if you combine the two!
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